I haven't seen any numbers from last night, but we've definitely picked up our attendance over the course of the summer - we've been consistently hitting about 17k for a little while now. I expect next week to be big for us, too - Houston, a Saturday, and an afternoon kickoff with a playoff position at stake. Our shitty start combined with a shitty spring really kept us in, but we're finding our way out.

The Bundesliga has the second best average of any league in any sport (just trailing the NFL). MLS is closer in average to La Liga than La Liga is to Bundesliga, so at least we've got that going for us.

I would almost say the Bundesliga number is more impressive than the NFL's considering they play more than twice as many games. I'd be interested to see what kind of TV ratings Bundesliga draws in comparison with the NFL.

I believe he is referring to games per team rather than overall games. Each team in the Bundesliga plays 34 games, versus 16 in the NFL. With the exception of New York, there isn't an option of going to see Team A versus Team B at home, unless you want to travel.

Bundesliga makes less money on their TV rights than any other top league.

Even here in the US, EPL is making the big bucks with NBC, La Liga and Serie A are on beIN which may not be available to everyone but it's Al Jazeera so they have tons of money. Bundesliga is with GolTV. They have no money and not only do most people not get it, but even the ones who do probably get it in standard definition and/or in Spanish.

It's a real shame because it's one of the most entertaining leagues out there. Hopefully they get their s*** together as far as TV is concerned, both in the US and elsewhere.

Seattle has been above Bundesliga average for a while now. An excellent testament to the possibilities of soccer attendance in America. I think it won't be long until the rest of the league catches up.

If a city that doesn't even come in the top 20 of US city population rankings, is supposedly NOT called "Soccer City USA" by many, has not won a single MLS cup or Supporter's Shield, has only been in this league for 4 years, also has an NFL and MLB team, doesn't even have their own soccer specific stadium, and has their stadium's seating artificially reduced for most games can beat the Bundesliga average attendance. Then I KNOW that the top 5 US cities by population(NY, LA, CHI, HOU, PHI) can at least reach that number in the next couple years.
Right?

All in SSS with a max attendance of 30,000 (LA if they open up the berm, extra bleachers), but all under 27,000, with some stadiums not even close to that number.

Largest immigrant communities, excepting PHI, in those cities--in the nation--sort of always makes MLS teams second choice. Soccer support is excellent, but MLS support is just decent. This isn't a bad thing, it just is.

Strong soccer culture in Washington, but of a different kind than LA/NY/CHI/HOU. Less immigrant driven in the PNW (certainly an immigrant component), but not really analogous to the culture in those 4 cities. Again, not a bad thing, just different. Just like Sounders fans have passed down the Sounders fanhood to their kids, communities in these cities have passed down fanhoods for a very diverse teams from their homeland (e.g myself-Arsenal, my neighbor-Genoa). The culture in these cities reflects the cosmopolitan demographics (PHI is sort of eh here).

Much, much, much more competition for eyeballs among sports teams (sorry about becoming the NBA's version of the NFL-LA threat).

In terms of stadium location, every city but Houston and Seattle is complete trash. Seattle still wins out on Houston by a wide margin due to the transit and the area surrounding the stadium.

The stadium experience in Seattle is the best (come at me Timbers fans), hands down. I think the location of the stadium, some unfortunate luck with sports teams, and the atmosphere leads Seattle to draw huge crowds.

It's quite possible for those cities to outdraw Seattle down the line, but it's a generation away (20-30 years) due to demographics and the timeline for replacing the 1st-3rd generations of MLS SSS (LA/CHI and then PHI/HOU).

Except you guys limited your growth by getting that swell fixer-upper downtown. The open basement formerly known as Multnomah Stadium can never grow past its current capacity. Which means you guys get a 10 year wait list for seats, and battles over who is the most authentic fans among yourselves.

We on the other hand said lets sell inside of an NFL stadium.

If everything goes right today, that NFL stadium's top attendance record might be held by it's soccer team.

You know, it was that or not have an MLS team yea? We don't have the luxury of having an NFL stadium to rent. But that's kind of nice, since we're the primary tenants of our building and don't have to put up with American Football lines or logos on our field. You know, that's a basic criteria of being an MLS squad these days, having a SSS.

As for OG status, I'm almost certain there are at least 5 sounders fans that remember their modest StarFire days and try to pull the authentic card. That happens at all clubs around the world that have even a sliver of history.

Edit: Don't edit your post. If you want to say something, have the balls to keep it up. Otherwise you're just another Sounder's fan who talks a big game but doesn't back it up.

Because all those places had to kick and scratch their way to a stadium.

They weren't handed a venue like Century-Link that was both large, but also built in such a way that it could be attractively limited for soccer matches. This isn't like KC playing in Arrowhead Stadium. Those were truly horrific experiences for any fan that went to the match, and eerily sparse on TV. That played into a negative loop that only reinforced low attendances. Could the KC owner's probably have gone bigger, sure, but again, they didn't have a football stadium that was built with the soccer option in mind.

People don't hate Seattle for attendance. People hate Seattle because you have an inferiority complex you try to defend by talking out of your ass.

You know nothing about the dynamics in LA that led to the HDC (now stubhub) complex being built where it was. That's just one example. Similarly, you're talking out of your ass about San Jose and Chicago.

Methinks you paint an overly negative picture of the obstacles the Sounders faced on joining MLS. They had an enviable pre-MLS history and established fan base in the region; they had an enviable stadium size, great first couple of years despite the lack of Supporter's Shield or MLS cup, and the seating restrictions worked to their advantage, not disadvantage. Seattle had less population, but it also had fewer other sports teams to compete for eyeballs. Putting an MLS team in Seattle just made sense, and the sort of attendance numbers they've been turning out were not that big of a surprise.

What makes us support the Sounders isn't just soccer, it's the fact our ownership (Hanauer) is from here, committed to staying here, and not at all scared to stand up as a proud Seattle supporter. He is out in the crowd during games sometimes - I've shook his hand as he's passed by my section a couple of times. Friendly engaging guy, wants to win, he is a total soccer nerd at heart.

That comes across and people respond to it favorably.

Our FO works hard at getting people to games. Which in turn gives us crowds to impress visiting stars who want to play here in front of this support. Some of our best promotion is done by our own players who love playing here.

It wasn't a slam dunk. It was a lot going right by ownership and fans committed to making it go right. ECS absolutely hit the intarwebs in 08-09 recruiting. They went from 1000 to what, 10,000 ? literally in less than a year. hard work, membership drives, loads and loads of beer parties :)

When did I say it was by accident? I just said that Seattle had some nice advantages other cities lacked. The Sounders sold more season tickets before playing a single MLS game, before the whole match-day culture was established, than any other team in the league had average attendance. That sort of early turnout was far easier to achieve in Seattle than it would have been in most cities.

I'm not trying to dismiss ECS or the owners - I think they've done wonderful things working with the advantages they had. But make no mistake - the Sounders had advantages in Seattle. It wasn't an "even playing field, any franchise in the MLS could have had these turnout levels if they'd just adopted the same practices." Which is why I felt it necessary to gently push back against otsegoamigo's comment, which painted the Sounders as a fairy-tale story of a near-impossible rise from obscurity.

Not sure what to extrapolate from this chart. The average is barely higher than the first season and the number of games has tripled over the course of time. Not saying its nothing to be proud of or not a sign of increased support for soccer, but perhaps this just means there are more games played today than when the MLS started and that the success of expansion franchises is as successful as the original MLS teams.

The median paints a much better picture than the mean IMO. The percent <10k is another great statistic to show growth. Both of those show that the bottom of the league has improved just as much as the top.